by Beth Macy
Packaged in Harlem, the heroin was shaped: Details of the FUBI ring were gleaned from interviews with numerous law enforcement officers who worked the case, 2016–2017, including Lutz, Stafford County drug task force officer Kevin Coffman, ATF agent Bill Metcalf, and Wolthuis, along with numerous users and their relatives, and with Ronnie Jones.
D.C. was so afraid of the drug: Author interview with one of his subdealers, “Marie,” name withheld to protect her job, May 23, 2016, confirmed by several drug task force officers.
wouldn’t even know where to put the needle: Author interview, Jones, Hazelton Federal Correctional Institute, Aug. 11, 2016.
“you don’t have people shooting at you”: Author interview, Coffman, May 31, 2016. Coffman also described the regular weight of the Harlem heroin haul.
important subset of the drug trade in Baltimore: Jean Marbella and Catherine Rentz, “Heroin Creates Crowded Illicit Economy in Baltimore,” Baltimore Sun, Dec. 19, 2015, quoting a RAND Corporation study and Baltimore’s heroin task force.
With the highest per capita rate of heroin use: Baltimore has the worst heroin problem in the country, according to incoming Maryland governor Larry Hogan: Jenna Johnson, “Hogan Says He Will Declare Heroin ‘Emergency’ Once Sworn in as Md. Governor,” Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2014. A 2000 DEA report said Baltimore had the highest per capita rate for heroin: Julia Beatty, “Baltimore: The Heroin Capital of the U.S.,” The Fix, March 30, 2015.
Baltimore residents were six times: “We have oh-point-two percent of the country’s population and one-point-two percent of the drug overdoses,” and locals are six times more likely to die of an opioid overdose, according to Mark O’Brien, Baltimore City Health Department’s opioid overdose prevention and treatment director: Author interview, Sept. 4, 2016.
Little Baltimore: Jennifer Donelan and Dwayne Myers, “Heroin Highway: Part 5—Hagerstown, Md. ‘Round the Clock Emergency,’” WJLA, Washington, D.C., Feb. 19, 2016.
A 2017 New Yorker profile of Martinsburg: Margaret Talbot, “The Addicts Next Door,” The New Yorker, June 5 and 12, 2017.
Intended to aid police surveillance: Luke Broadwater and Justin George, “City Expands Surveillance System to Include Private Cameras of Residents, Businesses,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. 30, 2014.
“Sometimes the dealers will flash their lights”: Author interview, Dennis Painter, June 17, 2016.
His girlfriend had to pick him up late that night: Author interview, Courtney Fletcher, Dennis’s then-girlfriend, May 17, 2017.
The first time Jesse shot up heroin: Author interview, Kristi Fernandez, May 23, 2016.
Gray was driving on a suspended license: Outlined in “Statement of Facts,” United States v. Devon Renard Gray, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Harrisonburg Division, Feb. 5, 2015.
“we’ve almost come to blows”: Author interview, Coffman, May 31, 2016.
a squealing chase through Middletown: Author interviews, Wolthuis, June 2, 2016, and Metcalf, May 23, 2016; and Joe Beck, “Officer: Strasburg Chase Speeds Reached 60 to 90 MPH,” Northern Virginia Daily, April 9, 2013.
Responding to a nearly sixfold increase: The per capita rate of imprisonment increased from 93 per 100,000 to 536 per 100,000, according to David Cole, “The Truth About Our Prison Crisis,” New York Review of Books, June 22, 2017.
“Too many Americans go to too many prisons”: Charlie Savage, “Justice Dept. Seeks to Curtail Stiff Drug Sentences,” New York Times, Aug. 12, 2013.
“My story was, I was recently out of jail”: Author interviews, Metcalf, May 16, 2016, and multiple subsequent interviews.
Rose had forgotten it was a territory: Author interview, Marie (name withheld), May 23, 2016.
“two hundred people I know of would get sick”: From the courtroom testimony of Marie (name withheld): Joe Beck, “Sentencing Depicts Dealer’s Role in Heroin Ring,” Northern Virginia Daily, June 3, 2015.
a woman’s chipper recorded voice intoned: Author interview, Marie.
“Never get high on your own supply”: Ibid.; Notorious B.I.G. lyrics from “Ten Crack Commandments.” Other details of Jones’s spending came from Jones, Lutz, Metcalf, Coffman, and Wolthius.
“reminds me of The Wire”: Author interview, Lutz, Jan. 19, 2016.
“We were disgusted”: Ibid.
overdose deaths in the region would surge: Author interview, Lauren Cummings, executive director of the drug abuse and prevention coalition Road to Recovery, July 3, 2017.
addicted user-dealer from Stafford County: Author interview, Metcalf, May 23, 2016, and sentencing memorandum, United States v. Kimberle Ann Hodsden, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Harrisonburg Division, April 15, 2015.
It was heady stuff: Sentencing memorandum prepared by Hodsden’s lawyer, Rhonda Quagliana, for Hodsden, April 15, 2015. Hodsden was sentenced to five years in federal prison for her role in the Jones/Shaw ring.
Marshall was a functioning heroin addict: Keith Marshall letter to author, received June 27, 2017. In separate emails from prison, Marshall also confirmed Metcalf’s account.
His lawyer told me he’d overdosed five times: Author interview, Dana Cormier, May 25, 2016.
“Mr. Metcalf unfortunately is”: Keith Marshall letter to author, received June 27, 2017.
FUBI: Author interview, Wolthuis, Jan. 7, 2016, and with agents and task force officers who worked the case.
Chapter Eight. “Shit Don’t Stop”
Interviews: Agent Bill Metcalf, Don Wolthuis, Lauren Cummings, Thomas Jones III, Ronnie Jones, Kristi Fernandez, Dennis Painter, Courtney Fletcher, Dr. Nora Volkow, Tracey Helton Mitchell, Dr. John Kelly, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, Barbara Van Rooyan
former Marine who’d been kicked out: Author interview, Bill Metcalf, June 9, 2017, and Joshua Pettyjohn’s presentencing report.
trying to distance himself from his buyers: Author interview, Don Wolthuis, June 2, 2016.
not only had overdose deaths surged: Increases from 2012 to 2013 in substance abuse determinants in the northern Shenandoah Valley, data tracked by Lauren Cummings.
the family had no idea Ronnie was a big-time: Author interviews, Ronnie Jones (in person and via prison email), and his brother, Thomas Jones III, Aug. 16, 2016.
delivering cupcakes to his daughter’s school: Jones’s account of his arrest and the weeks leading up to it came from my interview with him and from multiple exchanges via prison-monitored email.
The quest had become deeply personal: Author interviews, Metcalf, May 16, 2016, and June 13, 2017.
Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter Eric Eyre: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/cops_and_courts/drug-firms-poured-m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of/article_99026dad-8ed5-5075-90fa-adb906a36214.html.
“‘These country bumpkins’”: Author interview, Metcalf, July 10, 2017.
heroin stuffed into the false bottom: Wolthuis’s sentencing memo, United States v. Kareem Shaw, U.S. District Court for the Western Division of Virginia, Harrisonburg Division, April 21, 2015.
Wolthuis tallied the offense: Sentencing memo, United States of America v. Ryan Kenneth McQuinn, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Harrisonburg Division, Feb. 27, 2015. McQuinn’s release date was scheduled for May 13, 2018, including a sentence reduction for prison drug addiction and/or mental health treatment.
One of his first death cases: Author interview, Wolthuis, June 28, 2017.
And as far as she knew, Jesse’s problem: Author interviews, Kristi Fernandez, May 23 and Aug. 17, 2016; Dennis Painter, June 17, 2016; and Courtney Fletcher, June 10, 2016, and May 17, 2017.
“So glad to be sober on this date”: Postings by Jesse Bolstridge, from April 2013, at https://www.facebook.com/jesse.bolstridge.
“To be clear, the evidence supports long-term maintenance”: Author interview, Dr. Nora Volkow, April 27, 2016. Volkow’s testimony, presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jan. 27, 2016: https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/legislative-activitie
s/testimony-to-congress/2016/what-science-tells-us-about-opioid-abuse-addiction.
even Hazelden, the Betty Ford–affiliated: Maia Szalavitz, “Hazelden Introduces Antiaddiction Medications into Recovery for First Time,” Time, Nov. 5, 2012.
Jesse still owed $25,000 for that earlier rehab stint: Author interview, Fernandez, Sept. 10, 2017.
“The whole system needs revamped”: Author interview, Tracey Helton Mitchell, May 8, 2017.
“in any given episode, they only see”: Author interview, Dr. John Kelly, May 25, 2017.
He was forty-eight hours away from a do-over: Author interview, Fernandez, June 20, 2016.
“I’m not trying to do dope”: Details from the last weekend of Jesse’s life came from interviews with Fernandez, Painter, Fletcher, and Sgt. Brent Lutz.
“Arthur, I have been hearing a lot of foul shit lately”: Ronnie Jones’s letter to Arthur (no last name given), written by Jones on Jan. 13, 2015, and submitted by Wolthuis as evidence of continued harassment and drug dealing, even after Jones’s arrest, in the government’s case.
“Most agents would have written it off”: Author interview, Wolthuis, June 2, 2016.
The thirty-seven-year-old New York native had recently: Details of how Metcalf tracked Santiago came from multiple author interviews with Metcalf as well as from presentencing memoranda prepared in the case by his lawyer, Alberto Ebanks, and federal prosecutor Wolthuis, filed July 15, 2015.
“He deeply regrets his actions”: Ebanks’s presentencing memorandum, United States v. Matthew Santiago, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Harrisonburg Division, filed July 7, 2015.
“wings on pigs”: “Gunman ‘Assassinates’ 2 NYPD Officers in Brooklyn, Kills Self,” NBCNewYork.com, Dec. 21, 2014.
in nearby Winchester he could now buy it: Compared with thirty dollars for a bag, or point, of heroin in Woodstock: Author interview, Lutz, Oct. 26, 2017.
when rural America becomes the new inner city: Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg, “Rural America Is the New ‘Inner City,’” Wall Street Journal, May 27 and 28, 2017. Economic activity is more concentrated now in cities, and even many companies (for example, Amazon fulfillment centers) that were initially drawn to rural areas for lower taxes have picked up and moved to metro areas. The rural/urban divide has widened further following the 2007–2009 recession, with wages one-third higher in cities than rural areas, an inequality gap that is 50 percent wider than it was in the 1970s.
to get hauled back to jail: Painter’s mug shot was posted on the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, June 28, 2016, and noted that he was arrested for possession of a Schedule I/II drug, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana (second offense).
Jesse’s was one of 8,257 heroin-related deaths: “Drug-Poisoning Deaths Involving Heroin: United States, 2000–2013,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 2015: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db190.htm. Overall, there were 43,982 drug-overdose deaths in 2013.
even after its own expert panel voted 11–2: Barry Meier, “Addiction Specialists Wary of New Painkiller,” New York Times, Nov. 15, 2013.
“the benefits of this product outweigh the risks”: Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, “Why Did the F.D.A. Approve a New Pain Drug?,” The New Yorker, Dec. 2, 2013.
withdraw an opioid pain medication because of: Melanie Eversley and Sara Wise, “Risk of Abuse: FDA Wants Opioid Painkiller Pulled from Market,” USA Today, June 8, 2017.
annual death toll for drug overdose: Sixty-four thousand deaths reported in 2017 for 2016: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates.
“The most damaging thing Purdue did”: Author interview, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, Jan. 6, 2016.
The point was by then moot: Author interviews, Barbara Van Rooyan, Jan. 16, 2017, and several follow-up correspondences, including letter from Department of Health and Human Services to Barbara and Kirk Van Rooyan, Sept. 10, 2013: “The Agency is requiring certain other modifications to the labeling, including the indication, for ER/LA [extended release, long-acting] opioid analgesics to help improve the safe use of these products. We decline to make the specific labeling changes you request, however.” The New Yorker article Van Rooyan refers to is Patrick Radden Keefe, “Empire of Pain,” Oct. 30, 2017.
approval of the original OxyContin: “FDA Actions on OxyContin Products, 4/16/2013,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which noted that it was withdrawn from the market “for safety reasons”: https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/InformationbyDrugClass/ucm347857.htm.
Americans, representing 4.4 percent of the world’s population: Gary Garrison, “Claire McCaskill Cites Disproven Figure on Opioid Use,” PolitiFact.com, May 10, 2017, citing International Narcotics Board data.
Chapter Nine. Whac-A-Mole
Interviews: Ashlyn Kessler, Lee Miller, Andrew Bassford, Dr. Isaac Van Patten, Tess Henry, Patricia Mehrmann, Dr. Alan Henry, Terrence Engles, Special Agent Joe Crowder, Mark O’Brien, Chief Chris Perkins, Jamie Waldrop
(“Generally speaking, there are people who overdose”): Author interviews, Ashlyn Kessler, via prison-monitored email, video exchanges, and letters, June 2016 to September 2017.
a young mother named April who’d recently: Tiffany Stevens, “Baby Turned Over to CPS After Police Find Adults Passed Out in Vehicle,” Roanoke Times, Feb. 28, 2017. April Lynne Maxwell was revived by EMTs with naloxone and taken to jail and charged with felony child neglect. Two other adults in the car with her also overdosed and were charged with being intoxicated in public.
“Ashlyn is gonna break your heart”: Author interview, Lee Miller, June 13, 2016.
fifteen thousand text messages: Author interview, Andrew Bassford, Jan. 6, 2016, and follow-up interviews in person and via email.
“Can you meet me at Sheetz on Peters Creek Road?”: Ibid.
after putting away her first heroin dealer: Ibid. and Jeff Sturgeon, “Roanoke Heroin Ring Shut Down,” Roanoke Times, Nov. 14, 2014.
“We don’t enjoy the cooperation”: Author interviews, Dr. Isaac Van Patten, May 1, 2016, and April 19, 2017; United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board data on where heroin is produced: Christopher Woody and Reuters, “Here’s Where America’s Heroin Comes From,” March 3, 2016.
I thought of Tess Henry: Dozens of author interviews with Tess Henry and her mother, Patricia Mehrmann, took place beginning Dec. 2, 2015, and continued in person, over the phone, and via text and Facebook Messenger, up until this book went to press.
the same way four out of five heroin addicts: “79.5% of new heroin initiates in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that their initial drug was a prescription opioid,” according to Richard C. Dart et al., “Trends in Opioid Analgesic Abuse and Mortality in the United States,” New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 15, 2015.
Regulations now limited doctors: Laurence Hammack, “DEA Rule Targets Popular Painkillers,” Roanoke Times, Oct. 5, 2014. Quadrupling of prescription opioids: “Understanding the Epidemic,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Aug. 30, 2017, https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html.
upscheduling had been controversial: John J. Coleman, “Rescheduling Hydrocodone Combination Products: Addressing the Abuse of America’s Favorite Opioid,” American Society of Addiction Medicine, April 10, 2015.
one critic wrote in a published letter: Joe Graedon, “Patients in Pain Are Outraged About New Hydrocodone Rules,” People’s Pharmacy, Oct. 20, 2014.
“hot pack” their product: Author interview, Joe Crowder, May 1, 2016.
“I begged her public defender”: Author interview, Dr. Alan Henry, Dec. 20, 2017.
the fetus growing inside Tess: “Abrupt discontinuation of opioid use during pregnancy can result in premature labor, fetal distress, and miscarriage,” according to “A Collaborative Approach to the Treatment of Pregnant Women with Opioid Use Disorders,” Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Aug. 2, 2
016, available at https://ncsacw.samhsa.gov/files/Collaborative_Approach_508.pdf.
now being illicitly imported from China: David Armstrong, “‘Truly Terrifying’: Chinese Suppliers Flood US and Canada with Deadly Fentanyl,” STAT, April 5, 2016.
(Some arrived from China via Mexico): “Fentanyl: China’s Deadly Export to the United States,” staff report, U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, Feb. 1, 2017, https://www.uscc.gov/Research/fentanyl-china’s-deadly-export-united-states.
“Some of the companies shipping this stuff”: Author interview, Mark O’Brien, then-director of opioid overdose prevention and treatment, Baltimore City Health Department, Sept. 4, 2016.
But each time a derivative was banned: As cited by DEA spokesman Russ Baer in Sara Ganim, “China’s Fentanyl Ban a ‘Game Changer’ for Opioid Epidemic, DEA Officials Say,” CNN, Feb. 16, 2017; Kathleen McLaughlin, “Underground Labs in China Are Devising Potent New Opiates Faster Than Authorities Can Respond,” Science, March 29, 2017.
Roanoke police seized 560 grams: “Roanoke Valley Needs Assessment Partnerships for Success,” Roanoke Area Youth Substance Abuse Coalition (RAYSAC), Sept. 30, 2016, 22. The majority of those arrested were white males in their mid to late twenties.
Perkins had long championed community policing: Amy Friedenberger, “One Last Walk on the Old Beat,” Roanoke Times, March 1, 2016.
Hotels situated along the perimeter of Roanoke: Highways that pass by or cut through the city include I-81, I- 581, and U.S. 220; nearby hotels become prime heroin-dealing hot spots, according to RAYSAC survey, “Executive Summary,” 1.
shoplifting fueled by users like Tess: Author interviews, Chief Chris Perkins, Dec. 29, 2015, and April 24, 2017, and Tiffany Stevens, “Drug Initiative Faces New Street Realities,” Roanoke Times, Feb. 21, 2016.
A thirty-four-year-old woman was murdered: Violent crime up: Author interview, Van Patten; hotel murder: Neil Harvey, “Suspect in Roanoke Woman’s Death Is Denied Bond,” Roanoke Times, April 18, 2017.
